Why are the attacks on Afghanistan considered an attack on all of Islam? Is it a Muslim policy that Muslims must defend each other regardless of guilt? It's just that I get the impression that if this was an attack on say Korea then the Islamic outcry would be mute in comparison. I just find it difficult to see how this can be interpreted as 'imperialism' or an attack on Islam. If the terrorists had been Christian or Jewish or Satanists then the response would have been the same.

Please could I have a response from somebody so that I can understand the Islamic stance on this a little better?

Regards

Ryan Bridgman

I used to think the brain is the most fascinating part of my body. But, hey, who is telling me that?

Its not an attack on Islam, just being percieved as that because there has been alot of western propaganda against Muslim countries during the last ten years, and its being used by the concerned parties to instigate trouble, arouse emotions and hatered and to get people involved by misleading them. Yes Muslims are called upon to defend each other and yet Muslims cannot defend each other if one party is guilty, but at the same time there has to be proof of the gulit and the concerned are judged and punished accordingly. Hope this helps

I've heard a Muslim from Pakistan say, Muslims see each other as a nation, instead of different nationalities. This means, a black Muslim in Africa and a white Muslim in Europe will consider themselves brothers. Therefore, if you offend one, you end up offending the entire Nation of Islam.

Another insight into the Islamic psyche, they perceive the west as being indifferent or callous to their concerns. The massacre of Muslims in Serbia (which no one saw fit to prevent), the plight of Africans (too many issues to list), Israel's use of American weaponry to quell the Palestinian uprising, the stationing of troops on their holiest soil (Saudi Arabia which is home to Mecca), the continued support of sanctions against Baghdad (the Iraqi children suffer indirectly as a result), and America's shifting foreign policy in the area.

Like, I am a Catholic living in Singapore but don't care for the Northern Ireland issue. I have no emotions attached to it AT ALL. When a bomb goes off in France, Italy or those so called "Catholic" nations, I don't view them as an assault against Catholicism. And many Catholics would feel the same too. Likewise, I distance myself from the Church's past anti-semetism since the Archdiocese of Singapore was formed only this century and there is no way Singapore was involved in any inquisition or purging etc....

Maybe I'm not a good example since I come from a country where Christians form only 18% of the population and there isn't a long standing Christian tradition in this country. But then again, it's not as if many of the Catholic countries are overtly catholic, with contraception and porn rampant in Brazil, Italy, France etc......

SO I don't know if this is a good comparison, but it's a point of interest, anyhow.

I think most Muslims do in fact support the action against the Taliban. It's just that the majority of the population has been hiding over the past few days, and leaving CNN to film the rabble, who might only represent a few percent of the population, burning cars and throwing rocks.

It takes very few people in this age of television to make it look like a civil war. All you need is a few hundred people to invade a single town square where reporters are known to be in the vicinity.

I think there is just a lot of bitterness on the part of Islam and the Islamists. They have much to be proud of, strong European and Asian empires in the 18th century, mathimatical and medical innovations before that. Now what do they have? They have Israel which they see as an infidel state, they have secular barely-legitimate governments, they have harsh isolated regimes, and some of them have oil (and they live well).

The rest of the people just seem to have so little, except pride, and its been very difficult for them to grasp this, when the Ottoman Empire once stood from Austria to Egypt to Iran. Now, as they seek to rebuild their power base, too many are seeking this radical form of Islam and blaming Israel and the US for their problems as they adopt terror and horror to achieve their aims.

True, Muslims have adopted a sort of "one Nation" and attempted to shun the nation-state which I presume is a western innovation they think tries to limit their power and glory. But it is not and all Muslims are not the same, and despite their heated appeals to the contrary other than defending madmen and Palestinian terroirsts they have done little to stand for one another.

Do the Palestinains get pan-Arab support other than condemnations in their intifadah?

Do Palestinian refugees get treated as "guests" in their host country as Osama bin Laden does in his?

Which Arab countries are helping to demilitarize and rebuild civil Lebanon economically and socailly?

Who invaded Kuwait?

Which one large Sunni neighbor and large Shi'a nighbor warred for many years?

I think as noble as Muslim brotherhood is, it is merely an illusion in our complex world of shifting alliance and competitive advancement. For this reason, it has been easy for Muslims to blindly line up in support of one Muslim country when it is attacked by an infidel state (US).

Just my view and I'm fascinated as all hell with this religion. Hepkat, you agree at all?
tnnh

Majority in Pakistan do support Musharraff against the war on terrorism, what you see on TV is just the minority extreme lot that are no less than the Taliban and cant wait to take over the country, God help us if that happens

TNNH, I do agree that a lot of this indignation is based on pride, but I won't be so quick to condemn. I'm not sure I wouldn't feel the same way if my great civilization weren't also reduced to squabbling sibblings by colonial parents.

Thankyou very much for your insight. It is what I thought - the majority of Muslims are really against terror, but unfortunately the Western media knows that showing a minority of extremists on TV and portraying them as the majority sells. Sometimes the press is totally irresponsible and we need to control it more (I refer to footage of Palestinians 'celebrating' the WTC attacks which actually dated to sometime last year!)

I used to think the brain is the most fascinating part of my body. But, hey, who is telling me that?

Whether there is justification for attacking Afganisatan (in this case there probably is, although I don't think it will achieve anything), it is the latest in a consistant string of attacks on Muslims and Muslim nations. As listed above, bombing Sudan, troops in Saudi, bombing Libya, sanctions against Iraq, all of which are hard to justify. And worst of all, funding and arming Israel as it steals land, bulldozes houses, and kills hundreds of Palestinian civilians. And when the Palestinians fight to defend themselves/families/land by throwing rocks and having to blow themselves up in the face of F16s, tanks and guided missiles, they are branded terrorists. This and the other issues have to be seriously, honestly addressed if America and the west expect survive as a civilisation. (I'm not a Muslim btw.)

I'm a non-practising Christian from Canada and don't have too many strong opinions about religion but I have to respond to your comments.

There is hardly a string of attacks against Muslims. I would argue that the West is the biggest supporter of Islam: all Western nations have massive Islamic immigration & complete freedom of religion. I don't see massive Christian immigration to Muslim nations in return! The US led a war effort 10 years ago to help Kuwait (a Muslim nation) regain its freedom. The US troops in Saudi are there at the request & welcome of the Saudi government. US aid may support Israel, but as the only democracy in the region (regardless of its religion), I think this is apt. Perhaps when Syria, Lebanon, Jordan et al become democratic, US foreign aid can be shared more equally.

How about an election by the Palestinian people to affirm the PLO and Arafat as their leader? Until that happens, Israel deserves the West's full support.

I dumped at the gybe mark in strong winds when I looked up at a Porter Q400 on finals. Can't stop spotting.

I was, to say the least, surprised to read the allegation that the West is the biggest supporter of Islam. I wouldn't know about the West per se, the but the Western media is certainly no huge supporter of Islam or Islamic nations.

For example, when a terrorist who happens to be a Muslim kills someone, the media immediately proclaims that this is a Muslim murderer. Strangely enough, when a Catholic or Christian or Jew or whatever murders, he's simply a murderer. Plain and simple. No references are made to his religion at all. It's strange isn't it? That when a Muslim kills, the media blows up the matter and insists that he is doing it in the name of Islam and assumes that all Muslims are fanatical madmen who do nothing all day except take part in processions and burn silly looking pictures of George Bush. If a Christian is going to bomb the Eiffel Tower and says he is doing it to punish France for failing to be a good witness to God, the media isn't going to publish pages and pages about the brutality of the Christians during the crusades. It's just media bias.

A lecturer of mine once told me why the American media hated Islamic nations so much. He said, the only reason why it was so was because Islamic nations would not open their countries up to Western consumerism. The giant corporations in the West were unhappy that these countries were not receptive to skimpy bikinis and Mickey Mouse. They therefore used the media companies under their control to destroy the image of Islam. As we all know, CNN is owned by Time Warner, I think Disney owns Fox, and the list goes on. The Western media is no longer controlled by governments. It is, quite sadly, controlled by the mega corporations who use them to forward their own interests, in particular American consumerism.

Yyz717 speaks about the american Gulf War effort. He claims that the US led a war effort in Kuwait to regain its freedom. The US effort in Kuwait was to protect the US's own interests and had NOTHING to do with liberating Kuwait or whatever. If Iraq had taken control of Kuwait, Iraq would control a disporportionate amount of the world's oil supply. This would thus, not be in America's favour as it threatened America's oil supply. So the invasion of Kuwait was simply a protection of US interests. nothing else. If the US was so interested in being the world's policeman, why didn't they help East Timor when the Indonesians invaded them in the 1970s? The truth is, there was simply nothing to be gained if the US had helped East Timor. The US has shown time and again that they will not do anything to help unless their own interests are threatened.

And in any case, up until a few weeks ago, the Americans didn't give a toot for what was happening in Afghanistan or if the Afghans were dead or alive. They were not interested in the Northen Alliance or the deposed King or whatever. All of a sudden, after the WTC attack, the Northen Alliance are best friends with the Americans. They fail to see that there is alot more stability in the country after the Taleban took over and that Afghans are generally quite all right with the Taleban although a growing number are concerned about how the Taleban is getting more extremist.

Anyway, the Taleban has done a much better job than the Northern Alliance in solving the drug problem in Afghanistan. They literally burnt all the opium poppies and killed the opium farmers. Problem solved, albeit abit cruel. But hey, they execute drug traffickers everywhere anyway!

Arafat was democratically elected in an internationally overseen (and approved) vote a few years ago.

Lebanon is a democracy - MPs are elected by universal suffrage and the parliment choose the PM. Syria and Jordan may not be democracies in the sense that, say, France is, but their system has been in use longer than the US has existed and I don't think it is America's place to come along and tell other countries how to run things. In any case Jordan receives tonnes of US aid. You think the American electoral system is anything to be proud of?

Israel is hardly a democracy, considering the Palestinians in annexed land do not have a vote. It's democracy apartheid-style. Very impressive.

The US couldn't give two hoots about Kuwaiti freedom, how come Indonesia wasn't expelled from East Timor, Israel from the West Bank, Britain from NI et al?

And the troops in Saudi are to ensure US hegemony in the Gulf and to support a corrupt and hated gov't (oh, but it's friendly to the US so let's keep it in place regardless of the feelings of the Saudi people).

Carmy- you are so right, just yesterday I was watching BBC and was surprised to note that the newscaster was placing special emphesis on the Muslims in the protests outside the American embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, why couldnt they just say Indonesians? similarly in a portion about the aviation scene there was again special emphasis on cancellations to the Muslim countries Indonesia and Malaysia, I mean did that have to be mentioned? couldnt they just say Tourism is down in Asia? they really do distort the picture for ratings etc. Everyone has serious doubts about America's intentions regarding the attacks on Afghanistan, all you said in your post makes sense, I personally think the America want a foothold in the Central Asian region so as to control not only countries like China and now Neuclear Pakistan, but also Iran, India probably to make it a military power in the region, and the oil and mineral reserves of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, plus theyre also planning on setting up base in Tajikistan, its poor and in desperate need of help and even though islamic its still moderate compared with Afghanistan and the infrastrucutre from the Soviet era is intact making it an attractive place to operate from and ofcourse rule whatever puppet regime thats going to be set up in Afghanistan. All this because there is rising Arab resentment of the U.S, they want them out of their lands especially due to teh Palestine issue and becuase the U.S are aware that Arab oil may run out in the next 50 years so they need new supplies and they know where that is, so its best to learn from mistakes of the past and land in the region any which way before they wake up or before the Taliban take control of the reserves, its all reeking of a conspiracy, the attack on terrorism is just an excuse to mislead the moderate Muslims and to arouse their support and sympathy

Okay Hepkay...building on that.....why have only Western countries (based on Judeo-Christian values) been able to build prosperous societies? Why is there a not a single Muslim country that offers a national culture, economy or enivironment attractive to Christians?

Just asking.....

I dumped at the gybe mark in strong winds when I looked up at a Porter Q400 on finals. Can't stop spotting.

Because we are the last conquerers/colonial powers. Every quarter of the world eventually gets their moment of glory in the sun. While we were still cave dwellers in the Dark Ages, the Middle East was a world superpower. They were superior in every way, tehnologically, socially, whatever you can think of, they had it. Before them you had the Far East powers, before them, Indians, the list goes on and on. Also, you should not forget that like all superpowers before us, we have ruthlessly plundered and pillaged our way to the top. Why do you think we are so rich and the rest of the world is so poor? High culture and technology needs lots of capital. Our progress was fueled by hundreds of tons of stolen gold and silver from South America, forced labor, diamonds and other precious resources from Africa, cheap labor from Asia and the gathered knowledge of countless past civilizations long laid to waste.

We are simply the latest in a long list of world powers. In time, our civilization will also fall. Never believe we are inherently superior or deserving of what we have amassed.

Hepcat, you oversimplify a few things, but you are right about those great eastern cultures, and you could add the ancient Greeks as well.

But one thing all those great cultures have in common. It was long time before Islam was invented.

All great cultures of all times have a few thing in common: They were built on respect for individuals, love, teach and forgive. And such.

Islam is in one way different from all other religions: It's about power and punishment. (Same as communism, which in some places replaced religion). Steal and get your hand cut off, non-believers shall die (Salman Rusdie etc.). Rewards are given in the "next world" - after death - that's cheaper for those in power.

That's of course generalizing. and in fact Islam is practised in many different ways, and mostly much more humane.

But history must be seen in its correct time perspective. And Islam never created any of those great cultures.

And Airafrique, you are head on: Why did Muslim countries not accept the minority Christians, Buddhist, Hindu living among them... Power and punishment. A society driven on power instead of love cannot accept individuals who are diverting from the power guidelines.

The Internet and satellite TV has come as intruders into the power driven system. That's also the reason why they are banned or heavily regulated in some Islamic countries. And from where it isn't, people are fleeing in great numbers to other mainly Christianity dominated countries.

Prebennorholm, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. I think you are a very biased fellow. Power and punishment has been the mainstay of Christianity for hundreds of years. Let me not have to digress into a history of this continent, for if truth be known, we have committed far worse atrocities in the name of religion than all the Muslim nations put together. The Ottaman empire was VERY prosperous, and this was during the reign of Islam.

I think if you have a bias, you'll find ample evidence to prove your theories. But I think the safest approach is to remain open minded, and critical of one's own past before criticizing others.

You really have no clue what your talking about. Islam is similar to the Christianity and Judaism in many ways. None of these religions teaches violence, and Islam definitely doesn't. You obviously show no knowledge of Islam with your comments, it really sounds ridiculous. For one thing, Salman Rushdie is world famous for his lies in his books about islam, his anti-islam, and his strong and amazingly bold twisting of the Islamic faith. A lot of people know that. He is a superb poet and writer, but he is pretty messed up. I have said this many times in the past, and I will say it again, get your facts straight.

take care,
FSPilot747

25 Yyz717
: FSPilot747, I glad you raised Salmon Rushdie. If a 'Christian' writer wrote something equivalent to the Satanic Verses, there might be a small amt of

26 Airmale
: Sadly I have to agree with you Yyz717 on the latter half of your post and not the Salman Rushdie affair as I havent read his book so I cannot comment

27 Toda,Reisinger
: "I havent read his book so I cannot comment on it or the fatwa to kill him" WHAT??!! it means you're not against the terrible and unacceptable idea of

28 Yyz717
: Airmale, isn't any Fatwa to kill anyone for any reason, completely unacceptable? Do you think some Fatwas are acceptable?

29 Alpha 1
: Carmy, you say you don't know beans about the west in your one post, yet you have absolutely no problem giving an opinion and bashing the US, do you?

30 Yyz717
: Right on Alpha 1!! I agree totally! I'm not sure what Airmale is up to, whether he deliberately hates the West, or is trying to stir the pot. The form